Interpreting Stripe’s 2025 Letter: Despite the Crypto Winter, It’s Still Stablecoin Season

Original Article Title: "Stripe 2025 Annual Letter: Riding the Stablecoin Summer Through Crypto Winter"

Original Article Author: KarenZ, Foresight News

While the crypto market is still mired in a "winter" discourse, in 2025, Stripe has pulled Web3 technology out of the "crypto hype narrative" and firmly embedded it in the soil of the real economy, showcasing a different kind of "spark."

On February 24, Stripe released its 2025 annual letter, revealing a hardcore report of a "total transaction volume of $19 trillion, a 34% year-over-year increase." More importantly, this letter hinted at the progress of its Web3 strategy following the acquisitions of companies like Bridge and Privy — this was never merely about capital acquisitions but rather a quiet revolution: transforming Web3 from a niche player's frenzy into the underlying infrastructure of global payments and AI-era commerce, silently reshaping the rules of the global financial game.

Let's Start with the "Baseline": $19 Trillion, Supporting 1.6% of Global GDP Circulation

To understand Stripe's Web3 ambitions, we must first grasp its "foundation" — the core data in this annual letter, each piece of which highlights its absolute dominance in the global payment sector and solidifies the groundwork for its Web3 strategy.

In 2025, all merchants and businesses using Stripe's services saw their total processed transaction volume through its platform reach $19 trillion, a staggering 34% year-over-year increase. How impressive is this number? To put it into perspective, it accounts for 1.6% of the global GDP — in other words, for every $100 of global economic output, $1.6 flows through Stripe's system like an invisible financial artery, spanning every aspect of the global real economy.

More critically, Stripe's penetration has long surpassed the boundaries of being just a "payment tool." Its programmable financial services have directly or indirectly empowered over 5 million businesses worldwide, covering the majority of top AI companies, 90% of the Dow 30 companies, and 80% of the NASDAQ 100 companies — encompassing nearly all of the world's most dynamic commercial and technological entities.

Even in the startup realm, Stripe is quietly "monopolizing" the entryway: currently, 25% of newly registered companies in the state of Delaware in the United States are born through Stripe Atlas (its rapid company formation service), meaning that for every 4 new companies, 1 is ecologically tied to Stripe from the outset. Furthermore, its online payment tool, Link, has surpassed 200 million users, becoming one of the most popular express payment methods globally.

This strong and robust foundation has given Stripe enough confidence to bet on Web3. While most enterprises are scaling back their crypto efforts during the winter, Stripe is instead increasing its investment, and the progress of Bridge and Privy's implementation is the key evidence of this bet.

Breaking Bias: Even in the Crypto Winter, It's Still the Stablecoin Summer

When it comes to stablecoins, many people's initial reaction is still "a safe haven for speculation" or "a sideshow of the crypto world." However, in its annual letter, Stripe used a set of data to firmly break this bias: "While it may be the crypto winter now, it is definitely the summer of stablecoins."

The most obvious comparison is this: despite the current Bitcoin price being halved from October 2025, with the crypto market in a downturn, stablecoin payment volume has doubled, reaching $400 billion in 2025. More notably, of this $400 billion, 60% comes from B2B payments—meaning, stablecoins have transcended the realm of a "speculative tool" and have become a necessity for enterprise cross-border settlements and fund transfers, truly entering the core scenarios of the real economy.

Behind all this, Bridge, acquired by Stripe for $1.1 billion, is the key driver. Many are curious about what happened to Bridge after the acquisition. The answer lies in its transaction volume—post-acquisition, Bridge's transaction volume directly grew by over four times, proving with strength Stripe's acquisition logic: not buying a company, but integrating a set of implementable technical capabilities.

Bridge: Transaction Volume Grew by Over Four Times

Stripe's transformation of Bridge has never been as simple as "changing ownership," but rather deeply integrating it into its financial system, building a complete solution for fiat-to-crypto interoperability, achieving three key breakthroughs, each of which directly addresses industry pain points.

First, becoming the "technical core" of Stripe's stablecoin financial accounts. Now, Stripe's corporate users can freely achieve fiat-to-crypto fund transfers through the technical support provided by Bridge without the need for additional integration of third-party tools—no longer facing cumbersome API integrations or compliance risks, essentially opening the "gateway to crypto payments" for enterprises.

Second, breaking down the barrier between fiat and crypto. In April 2025, Bridge partnered with Visa to launch a stablecoin payment card: users can directly spend from their stablecoin balance, with the system automatically converting stablecoins to local fiat currency at the time of payment; on the merchant side, there is no need to touch any crypto technology or understand the underlying logic of stablecoins, making the entire process indistinguishable from regular card payments—this model completely removes the biggest obstacle to stablecoin adoption in everyday consumption.

The Phantom crypto wallet has also introduced a stablecoin card for users through Bridge, meaning that stablecoins are no longer just "digital assets in a wallet," but can be directly used for buying coffee and shopping as "real money," truly entering the lives of ordinary people.

Third, lowering the stablecoin issuance threshold. The new Open Issuance feature introduced by Bridge allows any business to quickly issue and manage its own stablecoin—without investing a huge cost in developing technology, without spending a lot of time connecting compliance, leveraging the Stripe ecosystem and Bridge's technology to have their own stablecoin. This also provides new possibilities for cross-border financing and fund management for small and medium-sized enterprises.

Privy and the "Vanishing Wallet": Seamless Entry for 1.1 Billion Users

If Bridge is the "circulation hub" of stablecoins, then Privy is the core puzzle piece that Stripe uses to connect the Web3 wallet layer.

Privy is not limited to the positioning of an "exclusive wallet for crypto players" but has been transformed into a tool that enterprises can directly reuse, drastically lowering the barrier to entry for Web3.

The core advantage of Privy is its powerful API capability—enterprises only need to integrate the Privy API to quickly deploy user-friendly Web3 wallets, without the need to separately develop interfaces for different wallets or invest heavily in researching encryption technology. This seemingly simple step has completely changed the application logic of Web3 wallets: they are no longer just a "niche toy" used only by crypto enthusiasts, but can also be easily accessed by enterprises.

By the end of 2025, Privy had already supported over 1.1 billion programmable wallets, distributed globally, serving various enterprises and users. To Stripe, the core value of Privy is to democratize Web3 infrastructure.

Payment-Focused L1 Tempo Set to Launch on Mainnet

If Bridge and Privy are acquired puzzle pieces, then Tempo is the "child" jointly hatched by Stripe and crypto venture capital Paradigm.

In its annual letter, Stripe candidly pointed out the existing shortcomings of blockchain in payment scenarios, including throughput, reliability, cost predictability, and privacy. A more serious issue is that, according to Stripe, as AI Agent begins to initiate transactions on a large scale, what will be needed in the future is a blockchain capable of processing millions or even billions of transactions per second. The existing blockchain architecture simply cannot meet this requirement.

Tempo's design philosophy is simple: built for payments. Its core capabilities include: dedicated payment channels, sub-second confirmation, optional privacy, fee payment with stablecoins, and more. Stripe has stated that companies like Visa, Nubank, and Shopify have tested Tempo's performance in various use cases including global payments, embedded finance, and remittances. The Tempo mainnet is also set to launch soon.

One of the most dramatic stories comes from Klarna. The company's CEO was once a prominent crypto skeptic, publicly disinterested in cryptocurrency technology. However, after experiencing Tempo, his attitude did a 180-degree turn, leading Klarna to become the first bank to issue stablecoins on the Tempo testnet.

The Future is Here: The Rise of Agentic Commerce

Even more exciting is the rise of "Agentic Commerce." Stripe predicts that future internet transactions will be predominantly carried out by AI Agents. We are far beyond the hype stage, now into building and real-world application.

· Stripe has collaborated with OpenAI to develop the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) and also enables support for the first shopping experience embedded in ChatGPT.

· Shared Payment Tokens have been introduced, allowing agents to initiate payments without exposing credentials.

· Machine Payments have even been launched, enabling developers to charge agents with just a few lines of code. Stripe will support payment using USDC stablecoin on the Base chain through the x402 protocol, with plans to expand to more protocols, payment methods, currencies, and blockchains in the future.

Stripe also underscores that Tempo's architecture is inherently suited for the AI-driven era of agentic commerce and micropayments, which is a core focus of Stripe's strategy. As countless AI Agents autonomously collaborate, purchase services, and exchange data on the internet, they require a high-throughput, low-cost, programmable settlement layer.

Stripe Acquiring PayPal? An Unconfirmed Bold Move

On the same day Stripe released its annual letter, Bloomberg reported that Stripe is considering acquiring all or part of PayPal's business.

The timing is delicate. PayPal is in a tough spot: It lost almost a third of its value in 2025, with a current market cap of around $43.5 billion. Meanwhile, according to CNBC, Stripe has announced a buyout offer to its employees and shareholders, with the company's valuation reaching $159 billion, a 74% surge from $91.5 billion a year ago. Stripe's co-founder and President, John Collison, told CNBC that the company is currently not planning an IPO to avoid diverting attention from its current product and business growth.

If the deal goes through, Stripe stands to gain access to Venmo, a highly engaged consumer wallet, PayPal's enterprise merchant relationships, and its brand checkout capabilities (despite recent growth slowdown). More importantly, this would significantly enhance Stripe's influence on the consumer side—Stripe has long been dominant on the merchant side but relatively weak in the consumer wallet space. However, despite the rosy strategic vision, the deal faces significant practical challenges such as antitrust scrutiny, funding, and integration.

John Collison's response, President of Stripe, in an interview was intriguing: "PayPal has clearly had a tough time over the last few years, with the landscape shifting significantly with the likes of Apple Pay and Google Pay. I can't speak to any M&A speculation, but they are clearly in a difficult spot." This response was quite artful: neither denying acquisition interest nor confirming negotiations but acknowledging PayPal's plight and the shifting market landscape.

Summary

In summary, the narrative for Stripe in 2025 is clear: break financial geographies with stablecoins, lower the barrier to entry for crypto with Privy, then handle trillions of transactions for future AI agents with Tempo, and connect AI and commerce through agent-based e-commerce.

With Bridge's quadruple growth, Privy's billion-dollar wallets, Tempo's testnet launch, and stablecoin penetration in the B2B space, the global economic infrastructure is quietly being reshaped.

We may be witnessing the emergence of a truly "internet-native financial system." By that time, you might find that AI is using stablecoins for your purchases; cross-border payments are flowing through a certain blockchain; your wallet is not a banking app but a programmable account embedded in various applications. This is not science fiction; this is the future that Stripe is building.

As the letter states, the survival of the fittest machine is accelerating. Stripe clearly doesn't want to just be a bystander to this machine but aims to be the engine powering it.

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